Chapter 7: An Interprofessional Response to Latino Students at Risk of Dropping Out: The Roosevelt High School Pilot Program

Each year about a million immigrants make their way to the United States, most coming from countries in Latin America and Asia. The high school students in the pilot program described herein were Spanish-speakers whose families were identified as migrant workers. In order to address their academic needs, an interprofessional development school pilot was established at one rural high school. This included a partnership developed between Colorado State University College of Applied Human Sciences (School of Education, School of Social Work, and Department of Health and Nutrition) and a rural Northern Colorado high school serving predominantly Hispanic migrant students. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how the project was conceptualized and carried out, and to present the findings of a qualitative program evaluation conducted on this approach/model. The pilot project sought to respond to the needs of migrant Latino students at risk of dropping out of school and an increasing need for universities to redesign professional preparation programs to form new interprofessional partnerships to meet the needs of underrepresented groups.